


that's enough.

by wishyouweresober



Series: glass. [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Eating Disorders, M/M, Recovery, Relapsing, sorry i suck at recovery fics :(, this is way too short but ill be writing more oneshots for this series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27966014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishyouweresober/pseuds/wishyouweresober
Summary: recovery was never something he'd expected. not really something he'd wanted either...but alexander hamilton is recovering from an eating disorder.- recovery arc oneshots/snippets -
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson
Series: glass. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037184
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OKOK SO im sorry i SUCK at recovery fics but i tried bc there NEEDED to be some kind of happy ending here  
> but im gonna probably make this into a bunch of extra oneshots as well.  
> thanks for reading!!!  
> TW//  
> eating disorder  
> anorexia  
> weight discussion  
> weight gain  
> weight loss

The sound of a door slamming open startled him, sure, but in his mind, it held no importance as compared to the feeling of  _ getting rid _ of everything the hospital forced him to consume. The burning in his lungs was quelled enough by his determination that he was able to push through for a few minutes at a time, but he found himself forced to stop with a pained curse at the thought of  _ giving up. _

It was only then that Alexander snapped his head up and toward the door. If he hadn't genuinely experienced it, he would've presumed his heart  _ stopped. _ Suddenly, anger and sadness and  _ jealousy _ and everything dirty and bitter inside of him rose to the surface- all at the sight of a man that once brought out his most lovely emotions. 

He couldn't help it, spitting out "What the  _ fuck  _ are you doing here?" His heart pounded angrily inside of his chest as Thomas looked at him, stunned.

"You..." Thomas looked over the frail, dying boy's body with something akin to shock, to  _ horror. _ He could see the days of Alexander's vibrant and  _ healthy _ self from only a year ago fresh in his mind, crumpled up with the remnants of a relationship that he had once thought was forever. To be honest, he still had a hope it would be forever.

" _ What? _ What do you want?" Alex wasn't screaming anymore, too tired to even try. Emotionally and physically, staring at the same man who had fallen out of love with him. But Thomas couldn't speak, his mouth opening and closing in a way that just made Alexander swallow painfully and force himself to stand up.

He wanted to cover himself, too scared of Thomas seeing his body. His  _ 5 pound larger body. _ He could practically see the fat in his mind, and  _ right _ when he had begun to be proud of his body. And Thomas was  _ staring _ and he couldn't breathe with those eyes on him. He fully expected Thomas to laugh, insult him,  _ leave _ again. But instead, he began to cry.

"I want... I want to help you.  _ Please. _ " Thomas could barely withstand looking at him. He was  _ perfect,  _ of course. He'd always be perfect. But as he stood there, he was only bone. There seemed to be no person in there anymore, vibrancy and personality and all traces of the passionate man were  _ gone.  _

"I don't  _ want  _ any. Not from you." Alexander tried to keep his voice strong and steady. But he could feel himself growing too faint to try, firmly standing regardless of the spinning in his head. Thomas winced but didn't offer a rebuttal. Taking that as a sign to continue, the small boy did. "I don't know  _ how _ many times I have to explain this but  _ you left me.  _ So stop saying you want to  _ help _ me. You can't  _ help _ me if you created the problem in the first place!"

Thomas's head snapped up in a moment, similar to their past arguments-  _ although, Thomas noted, they were not nearly as serious as this-  _ "How is this my fault? Alex, you can't keep  _ blaming _ everyone! You did this to yourself!"

"It was for  _ you-" _

" _ Stop  _ saying it was for me. You knew that I  _ hated  _ every  _ second _ of watching you die right in front of my eyes. How could I  _ like _ that? Ask for that? Alex, I wanted  _ nothing _ more than to have you back to how you used to be."

"You know what? You're right. It wasn't. But that doesn't mean that you should've left me or ignored me or-  _ any  _ of it!"

"Just  _ please _ explain it to me!" Thomas couldn't hold back his tears, and whether they came from anger or sadness- he couldn't quite tell. Alexander stared back in mere silence, his face shocked and stunned.

"I-" He paused, for a moment truly considering why he'd begun. "I wanted to be perfect, like you. But I don't know why. I just..."

Thomas finally moved forward, pushing past the tense atmosphere and closing the distance between them. " _ Tell  _ me. Please."

"I can't stop." He finally admitted, voice so silent that it barely scraped by a whisper. "I tried to, once. But I  _ can't.  _ I just wanted to lose 15 pounds, at most. But... I couldn't stop. There are just these  _ voices _ and no matter how many  _ stupid _ places you guys try and send me to,  _ none _ of them can get rid of them! So why do you guys keep trying?" Alex's voice had gradually risen in volume to the point where he was yelling. "You're all... Just wasting your time. So  _ please _ just leave me alone. I have it all under control."

"If you had it under control then you would've stopped  _ months  _ ago. But you don't, Lexi!" Thomas's voice cracked, grabbing the shorter man's hand delicately, in fear of breaking. "Please let me help you."

Alexander's eyes met his in a way that broke Alex's heart, sitting there with his mouth open and his heart pounding and- "Please don't get my hopes up. Please." He whispered, too scared to speak any louder.

"You can be helped. I  _ swear _ ." 

Alex's eyes closed, " _ Not _ that. Just- I can't. I can't just be friends with you. I don't think I can handle that."

Thomas closed his eyes as well, and for a moment- he could ignore the present. He could dwell in the past, each scene painted with a soft vignette. But the moment his hands reached the other boy's thin arms, the firm feeling of bones- he knew it wasn't a time for happiness. 

"Just.  _ Please. _ I need you alive."

Alex didn't know why he'd begun to reconsider  _ everything _ . It certainly wasn't a one day change. And honestly, it was  _ nothing _ like the stories he'd read online of what urged one's recovery- but then again, there would never be an identical recovery for any two people. At least, as the cheesy recovery blog that he'd read stated.

He hated the thought of 'recovery', though. He almost felt as if he were  _ faking.  _ Abandoning something.

That's why he'd tried recovering alone first, no help. Because if he realized how much of a  _ mistake _ it was, he could simply go back. And he'd gotten about two days into eating the slightly raised number of calories, but found himself pulling at the skin and fat that felt glued to his bones. 

He'd stared in the full-body mirror, as he had so many months ago, and it was as if he was a completely new person. Not one he enjoyed, either. It was obvious to him that he was skinnier, he could see the protruding of his bones that hadn't been seen since he was a starving immigrant orphan.

_ That's _ why he finally experimented allowing his friends to "help". He still had hope in his mind that he'd be able to retreat the  _ second _ he felt that overwhelming fear that he looked as he had months ago. But it didn't take him long to figure out how hard that was going to be.

Recovery was nights spent crying into your best friend's chest and begging to be allowed to run to the bathroom because  _ you couldn't handle the feeling of food in your stomach. _

Recovery was people staring at you curiously as if they knew  _ everything _ about the past year of your life. People who in reality knew  _ nothing _ about you patting your back and telling you how proud they are of you.

Recovery was finally being able to go back to your old life, slowly and in parts. It began with classes. Teachers poured a  _ shitton  _ of missed work on him. He might've been ahead before, but there were many nights where he was a moment away from dropping out altogether.

But recovery was also the relapses.

He remembered the first time. He'd sat in his room with pride swirling in his chest after not having eaten for an entire day. The first time in about three weeks. He'd felt worse than ever, feeling as if in just three weeks he lost every capability to deal with an emptiness that spread throughout his entire body. They hadn't even forced him to eat much anyway, having done diligent research and determining they needed to gently increase his intake. And the warnings of  _ death,  _ so many ways to  _ die _ still burnt through his lungs. 

He'd been dealing with it as well as one would expect. But that morning, he woke up  _ knowing _ that he couldn't do it anymore. He didn't quite understand how he got away with it despite the constant parenting, but that night he sat on his bed with pain burning right beneath his ribs and a pounding in his head.

He did as he'd done many times before, forcing himself to go asleep early so as to avoid eating anything else.

When he woke up that morning, it was to all of them whispering with worried eyes and dripping tears. 

For the first time, he'd felt regret for not eating.

But a year in, recovery became a BMI of right below healthy. Recovery became bad days scattered between many more decent days.

And sometimes he thought he was meant to miserable. Because he was  _ finally _ eating, which everyone made him believe must've made him happy-  _ better _ , right? But no. He felt horrible. Most days were spent struggling to leave his bed out of the pure emotional exhaustion after forcing himself to eat. 

He'd been told this was a solution.

Recovery didn't feel like a solution.

But it was the closest he'd ever get, he finally realized. It was 2 years into his recovery, and he finally thought he might have a chance to be happy. Maybe even a chance to  _ do  _ something with himself. 

It sucked, sure, sometimes. But he knew that he wasn't alone anymore.

And as he stood with his  _ fiance _ of two months, he finally realized he wasn't perfect. 

But that was fine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't mind me posting everytime i need to vent  
> i find it easier to like write my emotions when applying them to a character- anyone else??  
> but yeah!!  
> TW//  
> \- recovery  
> \- relapse  
> \- PTSD  
> \- alcohol

It's weird. Because recovery meant that he was eating above his usual restrictive amount of calories, but the  _ thoughts _ were there. Still just as strong. A distinct bitterness toward people who he saw in public, and plainly because they were skinnier than him. The feeling of  _ 'I look horrible I can't be seen in this' _ after putting on an outfit that seemed amazing in his mind. 

It was with this thought that he realized  _ what's the point? _ If he was going to be stuck with these miserable thoughts for the rest of his life, he might as well be starving alongside them.  _ Skinny.  _ But he wasn't.

The mirror showed the  _ fat _ sticking out of his stomach and the largeness of his thighs. He wished he could be one of those people who looked stunning with large features, but deep in his soul he knew that he  _ wasn't. _

Not to mention that those who surrounded him seemed to have the naturally fast metabolism that he'd been desiring ever since he'd had an adequate supply of food.

But he didn't.

_ He didn't. _

With how much society integrated diet culture into daily life, it was rather easy to convince himself that certain "disordered" behaviors were normal. Staring into any mirror possible and putting his feet together. Turning to the side to check his stomach. 

More and more behaviors piled on and on that he'd acquired from every influence on his life ever since the age of 12, until he was here.

82 pounds. Higher than he'd been in a few months. But still on the brink of constant fainting. The brink of death.

There was something comforting to that. Whenever he looked at his weight and saw a number higher than he'd like, he'd always thought  _ 'But you're still not healthy'. _

That didn't  _ scare  _ him.

Why the  _ fuck _ didn't that scare him anymore.

It was even harder to see people who  _ wanted _ what he had. Teenage girls and boys desperate to look pale and sick and thin- meanwhile society carved pictures of bone-thin angels into their skin.

Of course, he couldn't lie and say that the appeal hadn't drawn him in. Entertainment portrayed it as fragile, pretty girls who found a boy and were immediately cured. Some part of him had hoped that he might be like that. Or that he'd lose the 20 pounds that he'd wanted to and then be  _ finished. _

But he remembered the day that he stared down at the blinking, bright red 110 lbs. He was happy for a moment, but then he'd thought about it. He'd thought and thought until all he'd wanted was for his mind to  _ stop thinking. _

If he could lose 20 pounds, then surely he could lose more. It wasn't as if he looked how he'd wanted to. Sure, Thomas was staring at him with concern and hugging him and whispering praises in his ear as often as he could- but that didn't mean he was as perfect as he'd wanted yet.

And so he kept going.

See, they never tell you how  _ addicting  _ it was.

But recovery... it felt as if he were getting over something much more than just a  _ behavior. _ He'd almost personified his... his  _ eating disorder _ , imagining the voice in his head that told him  _ fat, fat, fat _ wasn't really him. He imagined that he had control over what was happening, that he could argue and argue with the voice in his head but he'd  _ finally _ found his match.

In an effort to find control, he'd lost  _ everything. _

Because he never  _ was _ in control of his disorder. It became his whole life. Anytime someone looked at him, he knew it was what they immediately thought of. Anytime he saw his friends, he knew that an expression of concern was lingering at the tips of their tongues.

That was initially why he'd considered isolating himself, back when he was at his lowest weight. But then he'd found his breaking point.

Alexander weighed just 84 pounds at the time, and he'd wanted a break from everything, relaxing at John's dorm as he had so many times. John, Hercules, him, Lafayette. He'd gotten drunk with them many times, and he knew that  _ they _ knew he wasn't that much of a lightweight. Which is why when they stopped him at just about 1 and a half beers, something was off.

" _ Hey _ , I think you're done for the night." Hercules looked sheepish as he gently pulled away the drink from his smaller friend. The thin man glared at him, confused. He opened his mouth to talk, but Hercules began to speak again in an almost scared voice. "You- I just don't think it's smart for you to have more."

" _ Safe,  _ he means." John spoke up when it was silent for a few moments. "You're just... A lot...  _ Smaller _ , now. We don't want anything bad to happen."

"I'm not that much 'smaller'", Alex wasn't above air-quotes. "that I can't handle the same amount. I'm barely even feeling anything." That was a lie, and he knew that they could see it too. His words were slurred and his cheeks rosy, but he'd never admit it. If he was honest, he only took it as a sign of success.  _ Small, frail boys who get drunk fast and- _

"Alexandre... You should stop. You're already drunk, no point in drinking more." Lafayette had finally added in, cringing too much at the awkward conversation.

"Yeah, Lexi. You rarely go further than this anyway." John tried.

But Alex just groaned and shook his head sloppily. " _ Please? _ I'm stressed as shit. And you can just call Thomas to pick me up or something. Two more." 

His friends glanced at each other nervously but eventually allowed him to have more. After 1 and a half more, Alex was  _ gone. _ That'd never happened before that night. He looked on the verge of blacking out, and his friends didn't exactly know what to do.

"Should we call Thomas now?" John asked as Alexander was pressed into his side and muttering absolute nonsense. The other boy jumped up, shaking his head as rapidly as he could.

" _ No, no, no-  _ Thomas isn't- He's not bein' nice righ' now." Alexander's eyes were droopy and sad as he spoke, the sad-drunk inside of him seeping out. 

John shushed him, "I know, I know." He'd heard a few things on their recent tension, Alex being his best friend. Of course, Alexander hadn't spoken to him much the past few weeks but their conversations were long enough for him to get some information. "But Thomas wouldn't leave you like this."

Alex didn't respond, draping himself over John's lap. Now, they'd been in this position many times before but  _ never _ had John felt his best friend's  _ bones _ pressed painfully into him. He glanced up with heavy and shocked eyes at Hercules and Lafayette, who were too busy staring at Alexander sadly to notice.

Alex remembered when Thomas had arrived. He looked as if he'd ran here, panting and bright red. "Is he okay? Where-" The moment the redhead noticed his boyfriend, he sluggishly stood up and began to bawl into the taller man's chest, mumbling almost incoherent words.

But Thomas could make out most of them, "Why don' you love me anymore? Wha'd I do?"

"How much..." Thomas cleared his throat and wrapped his arms around the other boy gently, scared of crushing the delicate bones so prominent against him. "How much did he have?" 

He watched John glance at Lafayette strangely before he said " _ Two. _ I don't- He'd never gotten this bad so fast before. I think he has a problem, Thomas."

Thomas hated that he wasn't even shocked. "I think so too. But I... I don't know what to do anymore." His boyfriend looked tiny in his arms, and he felt like a  _ monster _ for allowing it to have gotten this bad.

He took Alex home that night, allowing the boy to walk pressed against him, leaning on him for support for about a third of the walk there. But then Alex began to waver on his feet, his voice slowing down as he muttered " _ Tommy... Thomas... I don' feel well." _

Thomas startled and immediately caught the boy before he hit the ground. Alex felt so  _ limp _ in his arms, and he felt his breath seize in his throat. He shook the boy desperately. "Hey, Alex? Lexi? You there? Lexi!" Alex's eyes finally snapped open when he shouted, his eyes blurry and unfocused. 

"'m all'good." He nodded, moving to stand up straight but falling back into Thomas's grasp within a second. Thomas felt a smile breaking onto his face in relief, but it disappeared within a moment as he carried his boyfriend bridal style and felt  _ nothing  _ in his arms _. _

"Alex... You need to eat more." Thomas's voice was barely a whisper, staring down at the pale face of Alexander.

But then Alex's eyes opened slightly and he shook his head at Thomas with a smile, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "No... I wanna be like you. You're so pretty, Tommy. I love you Tommy."

Thomas didn't reply that time, simply shutting his eyes for a moment and allowing the other to fall asleep in his arms.

Alexander woke up that morning with a pounding headache and a dry throat. 

And  _ all alone. _

But recovery was different. Alex was rarely alone, and he wasn't allowed to drink, as per request from his boyfriend who felt oddly similar to his parent. He loved that he cared about him but... He felt like more of an issue than a person.

Not only due to his constant pestering, but also the tiredness of Thomas and his friends. He knew that it was because of his recent episodes. Around three to four A.M. almost every night he found himself waking up with bouts of uncontrollable shivers and stomach pain. It reminded him far too much of nights past where he'd shoved 13 laxatives down his throat in an effort to rid himself of that day's mistakes. But then he'd have Thomas's warm arms wrap around him, holding him tightly to his chest as he sobbed and begged for everything to stop, to just let him  _ die. _

Recovery was wanting to give up about 3 times a day, at  _ least. _ But hiding it, because then your friends would give you the same look they always did whenever you claimed to not be hungry. 

Recovery was hard and recovery was slow.

But recovery was better than dying. At least, Alex had begun to believe that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first time ive written in 2 months ahahha anywas pls enjoy  
> TW?// eating disorder, pills mention, scale, calories, relape

"Alex?" The boy held his breath, clenching his eyes shut to try and quell the tears that were quickly rising to the surface. He was currently curled up in the middle of his bathroom, trying to ignore the painful press of his bony knees into his even bonier cheeks. He'd never felt more pathetic. Not even when he'd begun and  _ nobody knew _ . Not even when he was a weight unimaginable to himself.

But now. 

Collapsed onto the floor of his bathroom, ignoring the heavy and quick knocks at the door. Fixated on the blinking numbers of the scale. The same one he hadn't touched since he first committed to this whole  _ recovery _ thing. And he'd meant to keep it that way. But then he'd gone out with his friends. And it'd actually gone pretty well.

They'd laughed almost the entire night, sat at some restaurant with food all over the table. He was pressed against Thomas and had succeeded in pushing the thoughts of calories away from the forefront of his mind. And he was laughing with his friends just like he had before his  _ problem _ . 

_ Problem. He supposed referring to it as that should've been the first sign that he might not have been completely safe from a relapse. _

He'd eaten half of his plate, and he honestly only stopped because he'd grown full. And he was fine.

For a while, at least.

But then he'd gotten home and he was  _ alone _ for the first time that night and he could finally sit there with his thoughts and nothing to distract him. And he hadn't realized how bloated he'd looked all of a sudden. He stared into the mirror that he couldn't quite bring himself to throw away and saw how he'd looked the  _ entire night. _ How had his friends even looked at him? He looked disgusting.  _ Greasy and fat and- _ He didn't understand how even though he  _ finally _ began to understand how much smaller he was than his friends- that he could be so much more disgusting and big and take up  _ so much more space- _

That's what so much of it was for him. The feeling of being more  _ disgusting and ungraceful and horrible  _ than everyone else.

And he was finally surrounded by enough silence that he could think deeper into those thoughts. And that was enough to convince him to walk to the store at 11 P.M. in the freezing cold. He didn't bother grabbing a jacket, too focused on making it as quickly as he could to the closest spot he knew that he could find exactly what he needed. What he didn't intend on doing, however, was bumping into Aaron Burr while grabbing a brand new scale, a bottle of diet pills, along with a pack of mint gum. The boy looked at him-  _ him, in just a thin t-shirt and jeans despite the 20-degree weather-  _ with a look that told Alex that  _ he knew something was off.  _ He could see Burr's eyes dart down to the box clutched protectively in his hands, and the pained look that had followed. 

"Alexander."

Alex swallowed, looking away to avoid acknowledging the  _ truth _ of what he was doing. Because Burr's concern was a reminder. A reminder of the fact that his...  _ disorder _ held a negative effect on  _ everyone around him.  _ But at that point, he wasn't sure he could bring himself to stop. It was so easy to excuse.  _ This isn't going to hurt anyone. It's just a scale. Why does he look so scared? _

Alex cleared his throat. "Burr. How come you're here so late?"

"I could ask the same of you," Burr's eyebrow rose. "I know it isn't my place to say anything. And I can't make you do anything. But I don't think you should buy that."

But then Alexander heard himself being called over to the register, and he knew that even Burr knew it was too late. "I... Thank you, Burr. But I'm fine." And with that, it was so easy to close his eyes and hand over the money and act like he wasn't doing anything wrong.

And then he'd gotten home, stepped on the scale, and remembered why this was so wrong. The numbers taunted him. Reminders of why he'd stopped eating in the first place. How had he allowed the number to get so  _ high? _

Eventually, he moved to sit on the floor. And that's when he broke. He thought that having a disorder, and being in the depths of it with no help from  _ anyone _ was the worst part. But  _ this  _ had to be it. 

And he didn't think he'd ever cried that hard. 

There was a knock at the door. Alex didn't even have the energy to try and muffle his cries, so he tried to block out the intruding noise as best he could.

But then he'd heard panicked shouting from the other side. Thomas's voice breaking through, the sound of John trying to calm him down almost a second later. And Alexander had never felt more pathetic in his entire life.

Here he was crying over a scale that he wasn't even meant to have, with his closest loved ones pounding on the door in a panic. 

They probably thought he was  _ dying. _

The door slammed open with a sickening noise and then he could feel the eyes staring at him. He wondered what they thought, staring at his body. Possibly disgusted. And what if they'd seen the  _ number? _ The blinking number that proclaimed to everyone how  _ fat  _ he'd allowed himself to have gotten. In all of his scrambled emotions, he found himself grabbing the scale and pill bottle in a panic and clutching it to his chest, hiding the information from all other eyes.

He could hear shouting around him, could feel hands trying to pry it away from him. He didn't know what they were trying to take. The bottle or the scale? It didn't matter to him. He couldn't let them have either.

And even though his mind was still caught up in what felt like a gigantic storm, eventually his surroundings had lulled and they tried to shush him. He could hear a rhythmic counting and began to feel himself come down. As he came into his surroundings, he wished he could go back. Thomas had his hands on the items in his arms, gently urging them out. But Alex just shook his head on a sob, whispering " _ No _ " as many times as he could. 

And ultimately Thomas succeeded in taking them from him, and all Alexander could do was sit there silently, staring at the floor and trying to ignore all that happened around him. He could feel their eyes boring into him, judgemental and scared- He wondered how  _ pitiful  _ he looked at that moment.

The next day was odd. It sort of felt like he was restarting. Thomas kept an even more watchful eye on him, and it seemed like all of his friends had been informed of his incident. 

He spent most of the day curled into his bed, trying to prolong the conversation he knew he needed to have.

_ "Why did it happen?" "What triggered it?"  _ and more.

But that was later. 

_**something small that can't j b an entire chapter...** _

Would he ever get better? Would this feeling  _ ever _ go away? His fingers were stained red from the disgustingly cheesy dust on the snack that he'd previously been eating, the bag staring at him on the table in such a  _ taunting  _ way.

And he was alone. Alone, but still suffocating from his surroundings. He could hear everyone,  _ everyone  _ begging him to eat- It didn't  _ matter _ that they weren't there. He could feel their judgemental eyes- the same ones that understood he was sick- but still had some lack of understanding toward the fact that he  _ couldn't bring himself to eat.  _ He'd seen it in the way that Angelica crinkled her nose when he'd first said the instinctive words:  _ I'm not hungry.  _

She'd wiped it off her face almost immediately after it arrived, but he could still see that look in her eyes, some sort of disbelief that he would still deny food. Because everyone thought he was fine. That he had recovered. And he  _ had.  _

But the thing with eating disorders is that you can never fully recover. There's always some sort of counting in your head. Some desperate need for control that's been stolen from you.

He'd even seen the lack of understanding with Thomas. It was much less often than with others, but still there. It'd happened recently when Thomas and him sat down for lunch. As Alexander stared at his plate, the food stared back mockingly. And even as Thomas picked up his own food and began to eat, Alex didn't think he could bring himself to eating.

_ Lunch isn't needed. You could _ easily _ skip this. You're not even that hungry. How are you going to work off bread? You can't. You can't eat this.  _

Alex hadn't noticed Thomas watching him worriedly until it was too late. A tear had already slipped out of his eye, and suddenly he felt  _ so fucking stupid.  _ He was crying over  _ bread.  _ Thomas's face flashed with concern, his hand reaching out to grasp Alex's. "What's wrong?" Thomas searched the other's eyes for an answer.

But how could Alexander explain that almost 7 months into recovery, he couldn't bring himself to eat a slice of bread? He swallowed nervously, forcing himself to appear as calm as possible as he finally spoke the first words that came to his head- "I'm not very hungry." And Thomas looked at him so disappointedly, almost asking the question of  _ how was he still not better?  _

And Alex didn't want to complain, truly. Because they were all doing their best. But they'd never fully understand.

And he knew that.

All he could do now was take a deep breath and prepare to move forward.


End file.
